Read Online The Letter Writer by Dan Fesperman - Free Book Online

skyline; and, above Columbus Circle, the high rent district along Central Park West over toward the lower end of Riverside Park. Almost as a throw-in you had the fleshpot holdovers of the Tenderloin, which Valentine had griped about even though it was a shadow of its old self, with a few vestiges scattered near Times Square, kept alive by mob money and the remnants of Tammany influence.
    Mulhearn began most mornings by standing in his office doorway, browsing a stack of newspapers that were so fresh you could smell the ink. He offered dramatic readings of stories that struck his fancy. Like having their very own Walter Winchell, although the detectives often rolled their eyes when he wasn’t looking.
    “Hey, here’s one for you guys,” Mulhearn announced, as Cain settled in. “Says here that some mug got thirty days for mouthing off about the war. Told a sailor he was fighting for a bunch of rich capitalists, and that FDR’s no better than Hitler.”
    “Thirty days for that?” Zharkov sounded shocked.
    “Some bum turned him in, and the judge threw the book at him. Said, ‘The right of free speech is limited by considerations of public welfare.’ ”
    “Whose public welfare was he endangering?” Wat Foley asked.
    “His own, I guess. Judge said if he’d ticked off the sailor enough, ‘Violence might easily have ensued.’ ”
    “So this clown got thirty days to save him from getting his ass kicked? Jiminy fucking Christmas.”
    “Judges, huh?”
    Mulhearn put down his
Herald-Tribune
and picked up the
Times.
Cain looked around at his colleagues, wondering who was clean, who was dirty. It was a no-win assignment. At best, he’d end up as the house stool pigeon. At worst, well, why even think about it?
    “Hey, Simmons, here’s one for you,” Mulhearn announced. “Some air ace in the Pacific who bagged six Japs on his last mission? The guys who built his plane out at the Grumman plant on Long Island got together a collection and bought him, get this,
one thousand, one hundred and fifty
cartons of smokes. Shit, that would keep you going at least a month.”
    “Maybe two,” Simmons said. “I been cuttin’ back.”
    Cain, meanwhile, was still so frazzled that he’d forgotten to check his own messages, which he’d scooped up just before Mulhearn had caught him poking around.
    The switchboard had taken one call for him, from Harris Euston. That made four calls in the past three days from his father-in-law, none of which Cain had returned. After the meeting with Valentine he felt less inclined than ever, although he supposed he owed Euston big-time. He stared at his phone, glanced at the number, then tossed it in the trash. Less than a week on the job, and he already felt obligated to way too many people.
    Cain got so lost in that thought that he didn’t notice anyone approaching until Desk Sergeant Romo was practically on top of him. Romo was out of breath, like he’d run upstairs.
    “Was going to collar you on your way upstairs,” Romo said. “But with Mulhearn right on your ass it didn’t look like a good time.”
    “You got that right. What’s up?”
    “There’s this guy.” He gestured over his shoulder. “Been bugging the shit out of everybody at the front desk. Claims he has to see you.”
    “Me?”
    “And nobody else. Been here for three hours.”
    “Three hours?”
    “Showed up before sunrise, while the night squad was still on. Won’t say what it’s about, and won’t take no for an answer. Looks too old to hit over the head, so I figured I’d bring him on up, let you sort it out.”
    “Send him over.”
    “He’s the guy over by Mulhearn. Guess I better grab him before he gets dragged into the show.”
    Cain took a look, and his spirits sank. Pale thin face, the color of oatmeal, with uncombed white hair sprouting from beneath the sides of a ratty wool cap. Unshaven, with white stubble. The man had supposedly been waiting indoors for hours, yet he was still bundled up against